10 Chicago transportation blunders

August 08, 2010

Great minds have laid out plans for Chicago even before Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett in 1909. Some plans have been magnificent, but some were mistakes and missed opportunities. The Tribune asked dozens of experts to nominate what they believe were transportation blunders:

• Abandonment of interurban light rail routes that predominated until the mid-1900s.

• The decision not to build an interchange with the Tri-State Tollway (Interstate Highway 294) when I-57 was built 40 years ago.

• The 1981 destruction and relocation of LaSalle Street Station, resulting in the loss of the only direct pedestrian connection between CTA rapid transit and a Metra station.

• Lack of a direct connection between the People Mover at O'Hare International Airport and the O'Hare station on Metra's North Central line.

• Lack of express service to O'Hare via the CTA's Blue Line.

• Failure to extend Illinois Highway 53 into Lake County decades ago.

• Block 37 CTA transit station development.

• Not building a crosstown expressway in the 1970s.

• Inadequate right of way for expansion of the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290)

• Spending hundreds of millions to "fix" the Hillside Strangler (I-294/290 interchange), only to move it a mile east.